This article aims to lay out before the user some very particular
information, that is, all references to personnel in the scenic and
costume departments that can be found in the librettos prepared for
London's Italian operas. The project is book-ended by 1710 (the
year in which the first London Italian opera was staged entirely in the
Italian language) and the 1800-1801 season (which is taken here as
closing the eighteenth century). We should be clear at the outset what
this information can be held to tell us. For a start, it is sparse and
erratic at best until the arrival of Thomas Lupino as a costume designer
in 1774. After this date, the printing of a scene or costume
designer's or maker's name in the libretto is a regular
occurrence, and does suggest his presence in London, and some
association for that season. It does not, however, guarantee that he was
present for the whole season, or that he designed or painted every piece
of scenery, or made all the costumes used for that season. On the other
hand, the lack of a designer's name in a libretto simply means that
the scene designer or painter was not mentioned; there may well be other
evidence showing that he was active during this period and may have
contributed to the staging in question. However, the discussion below
is, for the most part, intentionally limited to the information
contained in the libretto books, given that they represent a very
particular part of the process of staging opera, and present their own
particular problems. (1)

It might be as well to ask, first, who were the libretto books for?
The members of the audience at the King's Theatre and the Pantheon were, for the most part, subscribers who, by the very nature of such a
system, were aristocratic, interconnected, and wealthy. They would have
had the wherewithal to purchase such librettos, although whether they
were always interested in doing so is quite another matter. Subscribing
to the opera was, in some cases, a matter of social prestige, but in
others, the very interconnectedness of the lives of some of the patrons
suggests that it may simply have been a matter of desiring to attend the
same events as one's friends, acquaintances, and in some cases,
political allies, whatever those events--say, an opera, ridotto, or
masquerade--might have been. Even among the aristocracy, fluent Italian
could not be--and was not--assumed, and each book, designed for use
during the performance, had facing pages, with parallel English and
Italian versions of the text.

Based on performance runs, we can speculate that there were around
800 different librettos produced for the Italian opera in London, of
which copies of some 85 to 90% can be located (Burden and Chowrimootoo,
The Italian Opera Aria; "A movable feast"). Only one or two of
many librettos exist, which suggests that their print runs--about which
we know little or nothing--must have been small. Purchased on the day of
the performance, they cost one shilling--the advertised price from the
earliest libretto of a London opera all-sung in Italian printed in 1710
(Mancini)--until the appearance of Calzabigi's libretto for Orpheus
and Euridice, which premiered on 12 May 1785, and which was priced at
one shilling and sixpence. The lack of an increase before Orpheus was
understandable; the annualized inflation rate between 1710 and 1785 was
only 0.01%. (2) The rise for Orpheus was also understandable; the
libretto contained an expensive engraved frontispiece. (3) However, once
the price hike had been implemented on that one occasion, it quickly
became permanent, the printer John Almon claiming during the next season
to have been forced into it:

The Expense for paper and Printing being twice as much as it
formerly was, the Proprietor of the Opera-Books is under the Necessity
of selling them for Eighteen-pence, the cover Price given at the other
Theatre for Play-Books, though uncovered, but in one Language.
(Metastasio, Demetrio Introduction)

Some of the later librettos that year--Armida (De Gamerra, 1786),
L'Inglese in Italia (Badini)--were marked at one shilling and
sixpence, and thereafter, this price was the norm. Whether or not these
prices were exactly what was paid is not clear; the librettos printed in
1744 for Aristodemo, tiranno di Cuma and Rosalinda (both by Roll!)
contain the note that they cost "One Shilling, when delivered in
the Theatre", suggesting that it might have been more (or less) if
purchased directly from the shop or delivered to the purchaser's
residence. But whether one they cost one shilling, or one shilling and
sixpence, a sampling of the 1797 annual income of London's trades
and professions-apothecary 150 [pounds sterling]-300 [pounds sterling],
bookseller 200 [pounds sterling]-600 [pounds sterling], doctor 1,000
[pounds sterling], draper 100 [pounds sterling]-500 [pounds sterling],
mercer 50 [pounds sterling]-70 [pounds sterling], stationer 200 [pounds
sterling]-900 [pounds sterling]--suggests that they would have been
pricey, but would not have been beyond the reach of most of those
patrons who had already splashed out on an opera subscription or a
ticket purchase (Olsen 140-45).

It was one of those patrons who may well have been responsible for
the inclusion of the first name of a scene painter in a London libretto,
Marco Ricci (1676-1730); his name appears as "Signor Marco Rizzi of
Venice" in Grimaldi's 1710 libretto for L'Idaspe fedele
that opened on 23 March. (4) Most of the opera's music was by
Francesco Mancini, which the castrato Nicolo Grimaldi, singing as
Nicolini, had brought with him from Naples. (5) It was arranged by J. C.
Pepusch, and its success was doubtless due in part to Nicolini (who was
regarded as a superb performer both as a singer and actor), and in part
to the inclusion of a lion in the staging. (6) Ricci was part of a
circle that included his uncle, Sebastiano Ricci, Giovanni Antonio
Pellegrini, Antonio Bellucci, and Jacopo Amigoni, all of whom worked in
England between 1708 and about 1740. As it happens, all five artists
were connected with the London theatre and all were also involved in
producing decorative interiors for a number of patrons. Ricci was
invited to England with Pellegrini by the British ambassador at Venice,
Charles Montagu, Earl of Manchester, and it may be that such
aristocratic support resulted in his listing in the libretto. However,
Catherine Whistler has described Ricci as "an eccentric, unstable character", which suggests that one cannot discount that it was a
demand on his part (247). Assuming the staging to have been retained,
revivals would certainly have been practical, and the scenery appears to
have lasted until 1716, for the opera was performed in the seasons of
1710-11,1711-12,1714-15, and 1715-16. Of the four librettos that we
believe to have been printed for these later performances, only
one--that for the 1711-12 season--survives, and it also includes the
same reference to the designer's role (Grimaldi, 1712).
Ricci's input at the opera may have been limited to these sets for
L'Idaspe fedele, although Lowell Lindgren speculates that he may
also painted sets for other operas including those of Handel (Lindgren
96-98).

One who did paint sets for operas by the Royal Academy of Music in
the 1720s is Roberto Clerici (fl. 1711-48). Clerici, a former student of
Ferdinando Bibiena in Parma, came, via Vienna, to London before May
1716, when he is reported to have provided a scene, not recorded in
Morselli's libretto, for Pirro e Demetrio at the King's
Theatre that month, according to Highfill, Burnim and Langhans's
Biographical Dictionary of Actors ... (hereafter BDA) 3:330. However,
his involvement in Giovanni Porta's opera Numitore, which opened 2
April 1720, is recorded on the title page of Rolli's libretto
published by Thomas Wood, where we find that the scenes were by
"Signor ROBERTO CLERICI, Ingegnero della Reale Accademia"
("Engineer to the Royal Academy"). However, there is nothing
Bibienesque about the scenes described in the libretto, and while it
would have been interesting to have seen the most elaborate recorded,
"The Field of the Lupercalian Games, with a little Temple of Pan at
the further end of it", it does not appear to have reached the
heights of Baroque fantasy Clerici's training might have suggested.

It would be twenty years before another scene painter was
acknowledged in any form, this time to promote a single scene by a
(presumed) Frenchman William De la Cour, painted for Busiri overo in van
si fugge amore in 1740; the scene is the first notice of his presence in
London. (7) By 1750, there is record of him as "Lacourt"
painting at Covent Garden, and by 1757, at the Edinburgh Theatre, where
in 1759, James Boswell noted him painting under the administration of
West Dudley Digges (Boswell 50). In a later plea regarding payments, it
becomes clear that as well as special scenes, De la Cour had been
painting stock scenes (De la Cour). However, Boswell also referred to
him as the painter of "beautiful and elegant Landschapes
[sic]", noted that he was gaining "the Patronage of People of
Taste in this Country", and mentioned that there was a record of
portrait commissions (Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting 199-200). The
single scene painted in 1740 was probably "A Field surrounded with
Palms, and Pines, and Boyes, with other Plants in Blossoms" which
appeared in the finale (42), for no other description in Rolli's
libretto suggests anything other than a stock scene. The whole affair
may well have been a piece of commercial speculation on De la
Cour's part; if he was newly arrived, it would have been a way of
advertising his services as a scene painter, a painter of interiors, and
an executor of landscapes. The deals he claimed to have struck at
Newcastle--payment for scene painting through Benefits (8)--shows him to
have been open to a speculative-type approach to providing the scenes.

The next recorded scene designer noted in the librettos returns us
to Italy, to Ricci, and to the wider circle of Italian painters in
Britain identified by Whistler; she extends the circle far enough to
include Antonio Jolli (or Joli, c. 1700-77) (Whistler 247-48). Jolli,
who was born in Modena, had impeccable theatrical credentials: he
studied under Antonio Rinaldi and one of the Bibienas (believed to be
Francesco), and then worked in Rome under the most theatrical of all
painters of caprici, Giovanni Pannini (Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting
225-26). Jolli's name appears in Rolli's libretto for
Rosalinda, premiered on 31 January 1744--"Tutte le nuove Scene di
queste Opera sono Invenzione e Pittura del Signor Jolli"
("With a new scene for the opera invented and painted by Signor
Jolli")--an opera with music by Francesco Veracini based on
Shakespeare's As You Like It. The sets required by the libretto
included "a great square before the ducal palace", "the
inner part of the palace shaded by a grove", "a castle
surrounded by a deep moat", a three dimensional balcony, and a
working drawbridge. Having made his mark here, Jolli went on to design
the sets for the next full opera season, that of 1746-47. (9) There were
five works, one of which--Rossane (Roll!)--was billed as "An old
Opera by Mr Handel" (Scouten 1072), while the remaining four (with
librettos by Vanneschi) were new to London: the pasticcio Annibale in
Capua, Terradellas's Mitridate, Paradies's Petante, and
Terradellas's Bellerofonte. Jolli is acknowledged--"Tutte le
Scene per l'Opera, e per i Balli, sono disegnate e dipinte dal
Signor Jolli" ("With the scenes for the opera and the dances
designed and painted by Signor Jolli")--in all four of these
librettos. The only sets on which we appear to have any comments are
those of Fetonte, where George Harris recorded that he saw "fine
scenery", noting the "River Po, & the sun gradually
rising; a beautiful scene", and a "Temple of the Sun, very
grand & showy" (Burrows and Dunhill 234).

The inclusion of Jolli's name reflects the revolutionary
nature of this opera season; fronted by the impresario Francesco
Vanneschi, it showed an effort to co-ordinate and integrate not only
scene design, but also choruses and dances into the writing and staging
of opera (Burden, "Integrating dance"). The librettos for the
season, starting with Annibale in Capua, acknowledged both the scene
designer and the choreographer--"Inventore de' Balli Signor
Aloar" ("Inventor of the dances Signor Aloar")--an
outward indication that reflected efforts to establish this new approach
to operatic writing. Ironically, when Jolli was in charge of the Opera
as he seems to have been in 1747-48--at the least, the foreword to the
libretto of Semiramide riconosciuta that premiered on 7 May 1748
suggests that he was (10)--only the cast members and the composer are
listed.

The inclusion in the librettos of the names of Ricci, De la Cour
and Jolli are all advertisements of different sorts. As well as scene
painters, Ricci and De la Cour were artists, and as foreigners
establishing themselves in London would need to be noticed. In
Ricci's case, being noticed as already the recipient of
aristocratic patronage would have been a further advantage. Jolli was of
a different order. The inclusion of his name appears to have reflected
particular ideas about how productions should be conceived, but he, too,
had private patrons, and he is recorded working for Sarah Lennox,
Duchess of Richmond, at Temple Newsam, and at Fonthill House. It has
also been argued that he was responsible for the painted hall at
impresario John James Heidegger's house at Richmond (Croft-Murray,
"The Painted Hall").

After the 1746-47 season, no name associated with scenes would
again appear in a libretto until 1766-67, when the names of Vincenzo
Conti and Signor Bigari were included in the anonymous libretto of Gli
stravaganti; o sia, i matrimoniali alia moda, which opened on 21 October
1766. With this acknowledgement, a change in scope is indicated: Conti
and Bigari were not simply listed as set painters, but as machinists as
well: "Pittori, e Machinisti" ("Painters and
Machinists"). On this basis, it is possible to consider the Conti
and Bigari team as set designers, rather than painters. It seems
unlikely, for example, that Jolli or De la Cour had anything to do with
actually designing or building the sets in question, whereas the
references to machines indicates a closer relationship to the mechanics
of all aspects of the scenery. Although there are one or two
self-explanatory variations before the end of the century, after this
season the acknowledgement of the scenic department is made in similar
forms on a regular basis.

So much for the scenes and machines: the dresses would have to wait
until 1773 for the first record of the costumier's input. In that
year, the role of "pattern drawer for the dresses" was
ascribed to Simon Frederic Moenick in the 1773 libretto of Tamerlano
(Bottarelli), suggesting a design role only. The following year,
however, in Coltellini's libretto of La contessina (which opened on
11 January), we find the name of Thomas Lupino, the man who would design
costumes for the King's Theatre for almost ninety productions over
eighteen seasons. Lupino is recorded as being active in London as a
costume maker and supplier from the late 1750s, and A Biographical
Dictionary (hereafter BDA) suggests that he started at the King's
Theatre in the 1775-76 season (9:383). The librettos, however, indicate
otherwise, with his name appearing not only in the 1774 La contessina,
but in the printings of Antigono (Metastasio), Nitteti (Metastasio), and
Verseo (De Gamerra) of the same year. His name disappears from the
librettos in 1791 after the Pantheon fire. The librettos do, in fact,
suggest that there was a hiatus in his career at this point: BDA does
not place him back at Covent Garden until the 1794-95 season, while the
King's Theatre librettos list Vincenzio Sestini as the maker of the
dresses from 1792 until 1795. In fact, Lupino's name never again
appears in a London Italian opera libretto. His surviving designs are,
however, some of the few illustrations we possess that can be regarded
as a reliable guide when envisioning dance costumes for the
eighteenth-century London stage. (11)

Some of the more precise descriptions of roles, found in the table
below, belong to the librettos from the Italian opera at the Pantheon
(12)--most particularly that from De Gamerra's 1791 Armida (see
illustration p.133). With the exception of that for La pastorella nobile
(Zini), the Pantheon's 1791 librettos--Armida (De Gamerra), La
bella pescatrice (Zini), Idalide (Moretti), La locanda (Bottarelli), La
molinarella (Bottarelli), and Quinto Fabio (Andrei) and La discordia
conjugale from 1792 (Lorenzi)--signalled a distinct change in the
quality of information provided. The listings of the names of the
singers and dancers appeared pretty much as they had in previous
seasons, and the chorus and supernumeraries were obviously too low down
the pecking order to rate a mention, but there was a considerable
expansion of the listing of personnel in the production departments. In
the Armida libretto, we find not only Lupino's name as the maker of
the dresses, but both Francesco Bartolozzi and Henry Tresham listed as
the authors of the original drawings, William Hodges as the
"painter and inventor of the decorations", and a Monsieur
Bernard credited separately as the machinist.

The inclusion of these names does give some clue to the
ambitions--both operatic and social--of the Pantheon opera. Francesco
Bartolozzi was one of the most fashionable engravers. Henry Tresham, a
history painter, had been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy that
year, while William Hodges, another history painter and already an RA,
had travelled the world with James Cook, and was well known through the
published engravings for Cook's journals. Even M. Bernard, the
machinist, is listed as "from the Opera, Paris". When this
information is combined with the listing of the rest of the supporting
crew--two composers, a poet, a translator, the leader of the band, the
leader of the ballets, and the ballet master--an attendee could feel
that he or she was where the artistic action was. As it happened, it was
also symptomatic of the feeling that the promoters wanted to emphasise a
break with the past problems of the King's Theatre (Milhous,
Dideriksen, and Hume 3-62).

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Some of the 1791 librettos were also larger than normal: in the
cases of Armida (De Gamerra), and La bella pescatrice (Zini), and also
in related Pantheon publications, such as the ballet descriptions of
D'Auberval's Amphion and Thalia and his Telemachus, and the
anonymous Description of the allegory, painted for the curtain of the
King's Theatre, Pantheon the usual octavo format was replaced by
the larger quarto.

The information in the table that follows provides a comprehensive
overview of the information contained in the London librettos printed
for the Italian opera. The listing of the sources from which this
information comes will help to pinpoint just where those references
appear. It can be used to adjust our current perceptions of some
personnel, and confirm what we know from other sources. These
adjustments are both large and small, the example given above of Thomas
Lupino being a case in point; one more important one will suffice as a
further illustration.

One of the most interesting and important designers associated with
the Opera House was Michael Novosielski (1750-95), a Rome-born
"scene painter, architect, machinist, designer, [and]
entrepreneur" (BDA 11: 78). His date of arrival in England is
unknown, but he is recorded working at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, by
23 May 1777. Sybil Rosenfeld ("Novosielski"), Christopher
Baugh, and BDA (11: 79) simply give at the date of his move to the
King's Theatre as 1781. The authors of BDA, however, also suggest
an arrival in the "1780-1781" season, but of the three
librettos they cite, all--Mitridate (Anon), Il barone di Torreforte
(Anon), and Piramo e Tisbe (Coltellini)--are from 1781, and do not,
therefore, support the authors' date range of 1780-81. Yet the two
librettos cited here--Ricimero (Anon) and Le serve rivali (Chiari)--are
for runs of performances that started on 2 and 19 December 1780
respectively. Moreover, Ricimero opened the season, thereby placing
Novolsielski at the King's from its start. Given his later input
into the design and architecture of the building, this is also
suggestive of a greater involvement with the administration than may
otherwise be thought.

What the introduction above does emphasise, though, is that the
make-up of an eighteenth-century London libretto was an arbitrary
business, governed by such factors as the balance of power in the
administration, the desire of that administration to present a
particular image, or even the assiduousness of the theatre copyist
preparing the version for the printer; the careful presentation of all
those who were truly involved in the season was not a priority, nor,
indeed, of interest. Caveat utilitor!

Stage and Costume designers working at the Italian Opera in London
the evidence of the librettos

1) The alphabetisation is by letter order.

2) The names of the designers are given in the form surname,
christian name. In the cases where only the designer's title or
initial is known, this information is contained in {} to indicate that
nothing more is as yet known.

3) Those names marked with an asterisk * are omitted from BDA.

4) The linguistic form (or forms) of the role as given in the
libretto appears under the listing of the name.

5) The dates in column three indicate the seasons in which the
designer is recorded by the librettos as working in London. When []
appear within a run of dates, these indicate that there is no record in
the librettos of the designer working in London in those years.

6) Those librettos marked with a [dagger] were produced for the
King's Theatre at the Pantheon.

7) The date in parentheses after the title of the opera is that
date that appears printed on the libretto title page. A forward slash indicates that there is more than one libretto for that version of the
opera associated with that year. The number that follows the forward
slash gives the possible chronological position of that libretto in the
sequence.

8) The pressmark of each libretto is preceded by the holder's
sigla as listed by Repertoire International des Sources Musicales
(RISM).

9) The square brackets contain the CS and ESTC numbers of the
libretto. The CS number is that of Claudio Sartori. I librettos italiani
a stampa dalle origini al 1800: catalogo analitico. Cuneo: Bertola &
Locatelli, 1990; nCS indicates that that edition of the libretto is not
listed by Sartori. The ESTC number is that given to the libretto by the
English Short Title Catalogue, online at the British Library; nESTC
indicates that that edition of the libretto is not listed in the ESTC.

In the case of the librettos, the citation is followed by the RISM
library sigla and press mark of the copy consulted, followed by square
brackets which contain the relevant CS and ESTC numbers. The CS number
is that of Sartori; nCS indicates that that edition of the libretto is
not listed by Sartori. The ESTC number is that given to the libretto by
the English Short Title Catalogue, online at the British Library; nESTC
indicates that that edition of the libretto is not listed in the ESTC.

Burden, Michael. "Integrating dance; an early
'reform' opera on the London stage". The British Society
for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, January 2011, St.
Hugh's College, Oxford. Lecture.

--. "Adapting Phaeton; Quinault's 'role' in
reform opera on the London stage." The American Society for
Eighteenth-Century Studies, Annual Conference, March 2011, Vancouver.
Address. At http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk. Web.

(1) For the activities of scene painters, see Rosenfeld "Scene
Painters" and Georgian scene painters.

(2) Annual Inflation Rates in the United States 1775-2010, and
United Kingdom, 1265-2009, Measuring worth.com, Web, accessed 5 April
2010.

(3) This rise caused some controversy, although this appears to
have related to the division of the extra money, rather than the rise
itself: see Price, Milhous, and Hume 140-41.

(4) See Vertue 3, 268-69, for the Rizzi/Ricci spelling, and other
contemporary details.

(5) For one account of this period, see John Merrill Knapp in Dean
and Knapp 14050; for another, Fiske 31-51.

(6) Born in Naples, Nicolini had appeared in all the major Italian
opera centres, and had arrived in London in 1708. He made his debut at
the King's Theatre in a version of Alessandro Scarlatti's
Pirro e Demetrio, and enjoyed a great personal success. The lion can be
found satirised in Addison, 1.13 (15 March 1711): 68-73.

(7) Rosenfeld ("Scene painters" 114) lists him appearing
in 1735-36, but cites no evidence in support of this inclusion.

(8) "As I have received the payment of [sets for Edinburgh,
Glasgow, and Newcastle] only by benefits, the managers, instead of being
losers, must have considerably gained, because they were always such
nights as the charges of the house could not be otherwise cleared"
(De la Cour).

(9) Between 1744 and this season, the opera house, like most of the
theatres in London, was operating erratically during the crisis
precipitated by the Jacobite Rebellion (Scouten 1179).

(10) "'T wou'd be impossible for Words to express
the deep Sense I retain, of my very great Obligations to You (Ladies)
for the Countenance you have so graciously bestowed on my Endeavours to
entertain you this Winter, at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket
... this being the last Opera I shall bring on this Season." AN.
JOLLI. 7 March 1748. In [Preface] "To the Ladies". Semiramide.
By Metastasio.

(11) In 1976, these were in the private collections of Mrs R. I.
Young, Miss P. Butler, Mr L. Lambourne, and Mr Archer, with six of them
being held by the Birmingham Art Gallery; see Rosenfeld "A Lupino
collection".

(12) For details of sources and accounts of the Pantheon opera
scenes, see Milhous.

Michael Burden is director of New Chamber Opera, Professor of Opera
Studies at Oxford University, and Fellow in Music at New College, where
he is also Dean. His research is on the stage music of Henry Purcell and
on aspects of dance and theatre in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and
nineteenth centuries. His published work includes a catalogue of
Metastasio's operas as performed in London, an edition of he Ballet
de la Nuit: Rothschild B1/16/6 with Jennifer Thorp, and a forthcoming
biographical account of Regina Mingotti's years in London. He is
currently completing a book on the staging of opera in London 1660 to
1860, is on the editorial committees of the collected Stradella and
Eccles editions, and is President of the British Society for
Eighteenth-Century Studies.

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